Pros And Cons Of Transgender Female Athletes

In the article titled Face-off on the playing field By, Judith B. Stamper explains girls have their own story of support or discrimination, success also the debate of girls be allowed to compete on boys’ sports team. First, the writer Title IX explains female athletes are been treated second-class for long enough and should pass of inequalities and biases of girls. The writer also clarifies that girls doing sports make them healthier, physically, and emotionally. Other girls that don’t play sports are less likely to use of drugs. In addition, she notes a former Stanford University basketball player Mariah says, strength and independence of things girls learn from sports, the opportunities that are changing women.

First of all, some argues that the tittle IX grants equal sporting opportunities for both male and female students; however, the inequality or unfair treatment for female athletic student still exists. At every high school or college, young female athletics are still facing with the discrimination on the playing field. Women and girls just receive only 42 percent of the opportunities to play sports in high school and college even though female were half of total students.

Women’s right activist and collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines stands at the forefront within the debate of transgender participation within women’s collegiate athletics. Riley Gaines highlighted in her interview that the NCAA allows transgender female athletes to compete as long as they test for under 10nmol/L of testosterone, while biological females have levels ranging from .8 -1.2nmol/L (Riley Gaines Speaks out about Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas, 2022). The significant difference in testing numbers alone creates a considerable gap between transgender females and biological females, raising concerns about fair competition. It is undeniable that biological males have an athletic advantage compared to biological females and the current NCAA policy allows for only three points of testosterone testing when there are many other factors to consider keeping the integrity of women’s athletics.

Over the past few decades, we've seen many gender equality movements fighting for equal pay for women. However, the sports field is often overlooked in the fight. There are fewer professional female athletes, and female athletes tend to make less than their male counterparts, something I strongly disagree with. There’s a common factor such as male athletes get much better times in track events. Another example is, the men’s world record in the 100m is 9.58s and the women’s record is 10.47s.

Billie Jean King announced to the United States, “ I have often been asked whether I am a woman or an athlete. The question is absurd. Men are not asked that. I am an athlete. I am a woman.”

Women continue to break barriers in sports and create new ideas of what it is to be a female athlete. In 2012 nearly every country sent at least 1 woman to compete in the Olympics. Despite all help that Title IX has provided women there is still controversy surrounding this bill. There are people who believe that in order for so many women to have been able to play sports there had to be certain departments and people who had to suffer. No matter what view one has on Title IX it is agreed that women have been helped majorly and changed the way sports were seen by both sexes.

In the article, “Title IX defeats male athletes” by Ann Coulter, she says that male’s teams are being decimated in pursuit of an insane feminist dream that has morphed into feral policy: to make women’s sports equal to men’s, but really this shouldn’t have happened. Women play different sports than men do, sports are all different, and they shouldn’t have to be equal. Some sports are for men, some sports are for women, and some sports are for both. Some of the sports that are for men, could be too competitive or too complicated, but the sports that are for women exist so that women don’t have to play a sport that might be too hard for them. So in a way, men’s and women’s sports are already equal if you think about it because there is something for men to play and something for women

The headline of last year’s swimming and diving season was Lia Thomas, a record-breaking, transgender female swimmer who was permitted to compete on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swimming and diving team since she had completed the necessary hormone treatments as dictated by the NCAA and governing sport bodies. Mealer-Flowers noted how the majority people who had strong opinions on Thomas’s participation were not regular fans who follow the sport. Rather, they were average people who had issue with a transgender woman competing and succeeding over other women. To compare, Mealer-Flowers brought up Yale’s Iszac Henig, who is a transgender man who competed on the 2022-23 men’s swimming and diving team and the 2021-22 women’s swimming and diving team. While there was an outcry of outrage on social media and meet day protests regarding Thomas’s eligibility, Henig competing on the men’s team is gotten considerably less media coverage and scrutiny.

Sports have always been a male dominate sport, especially in schools. It took many years of schooling and fighting for females to be able to participate in sports and have equal education opportunities. “The passage of Title IX, the 1972 Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act, expanded high school athletic opportunities to include girls, revolutionizing mass sports participation in the United States (Rammell, 2014, pg. 136).” Since the legislation, Title IX was passed, sports offerings for boys and girls has changed. Title IX has created many opportunities for girls and young women today since it began 40 years ago.

Women athletes and women workers do not get the recognition they deserve. Men especially, look down upon women when it comes to their appearances, their knowledge and a women's physical and mental strength. In certain cases, a woman loses out on a job in the sports industry because she is exactly a woman. A male trainer can refuse to train women because of the parts her body has. Men and women have grown up in a world with the mindset that women know less than men when it comes to sports.

However, when Title IX passed, Women´s athletic teams went from 3 hundred thousand to 1.8 million girls who played on competitive inter scholarship teams. (Hanmer 84). For example, women believed that they were supposed to watch the boys play their sports, but when they got the chance and the self-esteem they showed their strong athletic side and joined the game. Women have overcome many challenging obstacles to get the equal rights they deserve, so girls having the right to join whatever team or sport they want should be a

In sports, should there be a category for people who identify themselves as transgender? I believe people should not be limited or labeled for just one gender. In society, a binary system is a difficult complex system. A binary system is a system with two gender identities where male’s bodies have a certain biological identity and where female’s bodies have a certain biological identity. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) should not organize and group Athletes by either Male or Female genders for the purpose of fair competition but should have groups of athletes with transgender identity and biological identity incorporated into both male and female categories because identities are non-binary.

Some counter arguments could be as follows. Some will say having people choose whatever sport they want could lead to them choosing a sport that is not really suited for them. Some others may argue that either male or female athlete may get distracted and not play the game as well as they could. Also, some may claim that that That is too masculine for her or too feminine for him. It is sad to say that boys and girls are discriminated or judged for playing together on the same team.

Gender Inequality in sports is an issue as old as sport itself. I choose this topic because we as a society seem to sweep it under the rug time after time. Women in sports however, try to address the issue only to have it go on deaf ears, leaving them to continue in the sport hoping something will change. Over the last few decades, strides have been made, but he sport remains an institution dominated by men. These women, whether they are in sport or in the business world, want a fair chance to be on the same level as their male counterparts.

There's still discrimination because men love to show off how big they are or how much they can lift, making women feel like they are not good enough to be on the team. Even though women's sports have grown over the past decades, women’s sporting events have not grown more popular, media coverage of female athletes is not up to date. Three decades later they finally realize that women sporting channels are harder to find, and the presens on female athletes on tv are low, lower than they were back in the day. LA local networks affiliates dedicated about five percent of their coverage to women's sports in 1989, in 2014 the percentage had dropped 3.2 percent and because they took more time to focus on the women sports it was better then than it is now. Even though the participation of girl sports has increased, the commercials and highlight shows have made the girls look weak and the people interested in wanting to come and watch them play.